Welcome To Hard Mode

Yes, is the answer to your question.

A month ago I lost my car keys. Fifteen minutes late for something, circling my house, coming unhinged at the ridiculousness that after forty-four years I still haven't learned to put things back where they belong. And then I caught myself doing the thing I've apparently done my whole life without naming it. I walked the house pointing at everything I laid eyes on — not this, not this, not this, not this — until my finger landed on the keys. I had to look at everything that wasn't true before I could arrive at what was. You are my keys. And then, as my daughter used to say when she was two: let's roll.

That's the whole method. That's how I've lived. And that's how I found God.

I'll wait while you gag. I did too. I have a lifelong aversion to that word — God — and all the baggage strapped to it. I hear it and I'm suddenly in a conservative church being told I'm going to hell twice: once for being Jewish, once for being gay. A congregation shipping missionaries off to save the souls of children who never asked. Here's where I've landed instead: every way a person reaches for their place in the vast all-is-ness has merit. Every way but one. The moment you tell another human they must believe as you believe, you've stopped seeking and started selling. I use the word God anyway — and God help me, it's a recent decision — because for all its implications, it's the one word we all recognize for big love, creation, justice (if there were such a thing). Its purest intent is unity. And I intend to challenge what people call God by calling it God. So it stays. Barf and all.

And I use it because it took me more than forty years to find what I now consider irrefutable proof that we are created. Made. On purpose. My journey now is showing you what I see — and I'm still figuring out how to do that. But I'm inviting you along while I do.

Hi. I'm Brian. I have forty-four years of experience being Brian — nobody on Earth does a better Brian Spitz impression than me. I'm a white man of some privilege, born and raised Jewish, gay, raised in a wealthy family that taught me we were poor. I'm married to the man I fell in love with eighteen years ago, and we have two beautiful and confident children, Reagan and Clark. I built a business. Loved building it, grew tired of working in it. In 2025, I sold it for less than I wanted, and more than most people are ever blessed to see. I have everything and I have nothing. I have sampled so much of this life and intend to gobble up more — but nothing fulfills me like giving it away.

This blog is about my journey to find God. With God. And if that sentence makes you want to click away, good — you're exactly who I'm talking to.

Here's the truth: there is no singular truth. The defining feature of this thing called human life is our relationship with polarity. Everything exists on a spectrum, and the hardest thing to accept is that both ends of every spectrum are true — because every variation of everything exists in this reality. Good, bad. Fat, thin. Free, imprisoned. Gay, straight. Black, white. Up, down, left, right. It's all here. It's all true, even when it appears to be at war with itself. And it all exists inside us. The moment we quit trying to prove who's right and chosen and who's wrong and heathen, we get to actually enjoy the harmony of difference.

I believe we all have one job here. One. Find and be who you are. That's it. The richness of our diversity is exactly what we came to offer — the expression of the soul, our beacon light to one another. We exist to express, and to mirror each other's expression so we can better know ourselves. Omniscience means *to know all*. If we say God knows everything, then everything must be here to know. Which means your walk of life isn't a mistake. Neither is the one you can't stand.

What I've found true of the biggest questions in life — and the smallest ones too — is that the answer to every question is yes. If you can't find yes at both ends, you haven't found the right question yet.

Take the most radioactive one. Should a woman have total control over her body? Yes — no woman should be forced to carry a child of rape or incest. For me, that must be true. Is life precious, individual, irreplaceable? Yes. Also true. But Brian, both can't be true. Pick a side. No. It just means that's not the right question. Perhaps the right question is: when does life become life? And this isn't a chicken-or-egg riddle — there's an answer. I have mine. You'll have to read here to find it.

The people we don't like or agree with are here to provoke — thought, conversation, contrast, change. We know what we want by knowing what we don't. Don't like abortion? Don't have one. Don't like gay marriage? Don't have one — marry a woman.

I nearly did. I almost married a remarkable woman in college before I fell in love — deeply, undeniably — with a man. I hurt her finding my truth, and I've never pretended otherwise. But either way, I was gay. And gay can't be wrong, because it's how I was made. That was the first of a hundred proofs of my one claim: being who you are is what you're most meant to do. God created me exactly as I am, so nothing that makes up Brian Spitz can be a mistake.

These essays are my attempt at the questions we're told to just take on faith. No sir. Faith isn't enough. There's something greater than faith — belief. And greater still — knowing. We're here to know. Not to settle THE truth once and for all, but to find our own. Two things are true of truth: all of what we each understand as truth is ultimately the same truth wearing different hats, and truth never requires someone else to live it in order for it to be true.

My purpose here is radical honesty – for your benefit, and mine. There is nothing I've said, felt, or done that I'm unwilling to share. The only details I withhold are the ones that belong to the people I love — my journey overlaps with theirs, and their chapters aren't mine to read aloud. Everything else is on the table. I've made terrible mistakes. Some I'm still paying for today. Things that held enormous shame for me. But shame is a prison, and today I aim to hold none. I'll stand completely naked before anyone — literally and figuratively — and believe me, that's no gorgeous sight anymore. But it's me. Totally and completely. If I can't be who I am, freely and entirely, how could I ever ask you to?

My husband cooks a hell-of-a flank steak, and my favorite cut is the burnt ends — crispy and bitter and charred outside, juicy and rare within. That's life. Delicious in all its joy and disgust. Reject nothing and nobody, and you'll find that which I call God — not a god you hope to believe in. A God you can *see*.

I first saw mine in the sky — by learning to read it. This isn't an astrologer's blog though — astrology is merely one of my exhibits.

So come one, come all. Strip down and laugh at the places most tender — I promise you'll find a freedom you'd trade for nothing. I am many things, good and bad, but for all of them, I am free. Obligated? Yes. In service of things that are uncomfortable? You bet. Faced daily with things I don't like? Absolutely. That's life. But I'm free.

I invite you to comment, with one rule: don't answer someone's share by explaining how they're wrong — answer by sharing what you've found right and true for you. We're meant to learn from one another. Perspective: that's what we came here to gain, and arguably the only thing any of us takes when we leave. It's hard-won through rigorous fight — trial and error, victory and loss. At the end of the journey, the question you'll be asked is: did you find the stone? I believe I've found several. I intend to find more as I travel the levels of my life. I wish the same for you.

We were made this way. Made to walk the path we're on. Made for the sound and the fury.

Welcome to HardMode

What you'll find here